Hagen was born Eva-Maria Buchholz[2] in Költschen (present-day Poland) on 19 October 1934,[3] the daughter of farm workers from East Brandenburg.

[7] Hagen made her theater debut in 1953 in Erwin Strittmatter's play Katzgraben directed by Bertolt Brecht at the Berliner Ensemble.

She was dismissed without notice from the German television broadcaster Deutscher Fernsehfunk (DFF) in the GDR and banned from working.

[14] After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Hagen made films in Babelsberg again, appeared on stage as Medea or Mother Courage or sang Brecht songs.

[13] In 1954 she married Hans Oliva-Hagen and they had a child named Catharina, singer and actress Nina Hagen.